BT ties up with Microsoft to offer UC services

BANGALORE, INDIA: British Telecom, a telecommunication services provider, today announced an agreement with the software giant Microsoft Corp. to market and deliver Microsoft Online Services to business customers, giving them access to integrated cloud computing and collaboration services.

BT would be the first telecommunications and network IT services provider to resell the Dedicated Business Productivity Online Suite to enterprise organizations, said a press releases.

BT customers would have access to Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite, including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

By integrating Microsoft’s product suite into its 21CN global, a software-driven customer network, BT would provide customers with a fully-hosted managed service, ensuring higher quality of service levels and guaranteed network performance.

Neil Sutton, vice president, Global Portfolio, BT Global Services, said: “This agreement enables BT and Microsoft to provide large organizations with fully integrated cloud-based business collaboration tools, while reducing their overall networked IT and infrastructure costs. The services will also allow customers to build on existing legacy systems, while integrating voice and data applications.”

By embedding the Business Online Productivity Suite into BT’s multi-protocol layer switching networks, customers would have access to a fully hosted service, including power, performance management, maintenance and software upgrades.

BT would deliver a full integration with its Global Onevoice service later in the year, leveraging the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) capabilities within its leading voice Virtual Private Network platform.

By closely integrating BT Managed Microsoft Office Communications Server offerings with the business online productivity suite, BT and Microsoft would be able to work with large organizations to tailor their end-to-end voice and IT services requirements, including: single-number reach, SIP trunking, attendant console, and premise-based audio conferencing.

The announcement builds on a long partnership between BT and Microsoft in selling and delivering business services and solutions to consumer, small-to-medium sized and enterprise customers. BT is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, the release added.

“Today’s agreement marks a significant step forward in our relationship with BT,” said Ron Markezich, corporate vice president, Microsoft Online.

He added that through their work with BT, Microsoft would be better enabled to deliver productivity solutions for a growing number of businesses worldwide that are looking for new ways to control costs and do more with less.